THE recent series of crimes involving security personnel are a low point in the security affairs of the nation.  Just when the confidence stock of the security forces was climbing with the elimination of the “Fine Man” gang and the routing of criminal elements, we have the Ramdass killing, and other allegations pointing to the security forces. People have now lost a lot of faith in the security forces to protect them bringing back memories to the dark era of kick down door banditry of the late 1970s and 80s during the dictatorship. Much need to be done now to restore faith in the security forces. Government should consider establishing a Commission of Inquiry on the need to transform the security agencies to boost peoples’ morale and confidence in them.

One of the questions in my annual NACTA polls over the last several years (going back to 1996 as published in the Chronicle) was on peoples’ confidence in the security forces in protecting them.  Year after year, only small percentages of the nation had faith in the security forces protecting them. There is near unanimity among a cross-section of the population that there are rotten elements in the security forces and they have got to be weeded out.

People told me tales of horror and disgust of the treatment meted out to them by some police elements and nothing was done to discipline the rascals who preyed on the weak. While some of the people may tend to exaggerate what they experienced at the hands of elements within the police, the inescapable truth is that, if they can help it, a majority of law-abiding people would like to avoid dealing with the police or going into a police station. Nor would they like to be stopped by a policeman when driving.

As the NACTA polls found, there is a widespread feeling that the ills of the security forces are due to their acute politicisation. People lost respect in the army and police because of their roles in election riggings and terrorising of political opponents during the dictatorship. The security forces were badly manipulated to serve political ends and since the restoration of democracy, not much was done to professionalize them to respect law and order and peoples rights. In fact, many people felt that elements of the security forces were involved in criminal acts. With the restoration of democracy, the NACTA poll found that people have not been satisfied with the job being done by the army and police. People believe that elements in the army and police were and still are involved in drug trafficking, robberies, and other crimes.  I observed drug pushers peddling their stuff near the presence of police and no action was taken. People saw their security forces, the police, in particular as corrupt and insensitive to them. Almost everyone complained they had to offer a bribe to the police to get things done or to avoid a charge.  Some women complained that police and army personnel demand sexual favors to avoid charges (of their men folks or themselves).  People completely lost faith in the army and police to protect them when businessmen were being killed between 2001 and 2004 and resorted to their own means of protection. And when the massacres occurred on the East Coast, Bartica, and the interior last year, the stock of the security forces was at an all time low.  But the security forces rose to the occasion and wiped out some of the wanted criminals.  And when they got fine man and his gang, people started seeing the security forces as heroes and as the kind of security they could be proud of and depend on to protect them. And now this setback involving the murder of Ramdass, and maybe their involvement in the murders of others over the last couple of weeks.

The security forces cannot expect people to trust them, with all that has happened in recent weeks. They will have to change radically and the heads of the Police and Army need to take swift actions against the tainted officers and seek to root out corruption.  The corrupt should be weeded out immediately and brought up on charges.  The good security forces ought to be rewarded and applauded.  And government should take steps to re-train the forces to become people-friendly. A Commission should be established to look into problems with the security forces and to make recommendations towards reforming the security forces and improving their performance so as to restore peoples’ confidence in them.